


A Guide to Caring for Your Vigilante Boyfriend

by DJClawson



Series: Theodore Nelson's Adventures in Sharing a Workspace [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Cats, Claire Temple - Mentioned, Coming Out, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Frank Castle - Mentioned - Freeform, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Luke Cage - mentioned, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Yeah so it might be THAT Malcolm, veganism, very literally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 04:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16926168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: Theo debates whether any of this is worth the hassle.





	A Guide to Caring for Your Vigilante Boyfriend

**Author's Note:**

> Do you guys want me to continue this series? It's mostly fluff, and I don't usually do that, but nobody filled my Matt/Theo request on kinkmeme, so this happened. I could probably do more. Leave a comment for what you might want to see.
> 
> As always, thanks to Pogopop for her beta work!

If Matt was Theo’s boyfriend, he was a bad boyfriend.

He was late to things. He was good at manipulating people into doing what he wanted, but he didn’t seem to understand basic gestures to show affection. Not that Theo had been looking for them – he just noticed when they weren’t there.

It also helped when Foggy told him, “He doesn’t know how to do emotions.”

For about the billionth time, Theo questioned why Foggy considered this guy his platonic soulmate. Marci sounded like _work_ but she was affectionate. She loved Foggy and it showed.

Foggy just sighed at Theo’s expression and explained, “Matt had no one for a long time. His mom left, his dad died, he was in an orphanage, people avoided him because they thought he was weird – I think I was his first real friend. So, like, he kind of doesn’t know what to do with the people in his life. It can make him seem like a really shitty person, but he’s not a shitty person. He just thinks everyone will _see_ him as a shitty person and leave him. So – if you don’t want to deal with that, fine, that’s understandable.”

“We’re not a _thing_ ,” Theo said rather firmly, and Matt wasn’t there, but he was pretty sure Matt would agree. Then again, maybe not. Turned out seeing Matt mostly naked didn’t help Theo get as good as a read on him as he thought it might have.

“Well if you are, you have to let him know because he will flirt with every fucking person like you are not a thing.”

“I shouldn’t be asking this,” Theo said, “but is that why Karen left him?”

“Oh man, I hadn’t even considered that.” Foggy frowned. “I don’t know. Probably. Plus the whole Daredevil thing. He was not up-front about that _at all_. I think she thought he was an alcoholic.”

“He doesn’t act like an alcoholic. He acts like he’s in pain all the time.”

“Because he probably _is_ because he has no self-preservation. If he’s bleeding, there’s a reason.”

So when Matt showed up at Theo’s apartment two nights later later and with about half of his face red and swollen, Theo tried not to be overly surprised.

“What?” Matt acted all innocent. Or somewhat innocent. “I changed.” He thumbed his shirt. “I’ve been told this isn’t black. It’s not black, right?”

“It’s maroon.”

“What’s maroon? It’s like red, right?”

“It’s a brownish red,” Theo said, and opened the door the rest of the way for him, so Matt could step in and start closing up his cane.

“I don’t always remember shades of things,” Matt said, and Theo figured that color wasn’t something Matt could hear, or whatever it was he did.

“I was reacting to your face, by the way. Which is red.”

“I know.”

“Did you fall?”

“Onto somebody’s fist,” Matt said. “I wasn’t going to go out but – it was right outside my apartment.”

Theo was going to hand him a beer but instead he said, “Sit the fuck down.” He pointed to the tiny couch, but still said, “The couch is at your six.”

Matt sort of grumbled – he was limping a little – but did sit down as Theo opened his freezer. It was pretty empty. He didn’t like frozen things, and working in food services meant he had access to fresher ingredients. He went to the fridge instead and tested the meat defrosting on a plate – still pretty cold.

“Take off your glasses,” he told Matt, who did so without complaint. “This is gonna be cold.” He put the steak up against Matt’s skin. Matt hissed a little. Theo took Matt’s hand and put it up. “Hold that.” Then he went for another beer because he definitely needed one, and Matt probably did too.

“Is this steak?” Matt said. “Why do you have steak?”

“The bone’s out and it’s past prime, so it’s more like steak scraps,” Theo said. “It’s for Sadie.”

Matt hadn’t been introduced to Theo’s cat so much as told about her, since she was shy around visitors. Really, anyone who wasn’t Theo. “Your cat is gluten-free?”

“My cat is a carnivore. She shouldn’t be eating any gluten. I can barely get her to eat the wet cat food.” He did not ask if Matt wanted a beer, just opened a bottle and offered it silently. Matt accepted. “So if she starts licking your face, that’s what that’s about. She probably won’t, though. I think she’s hiding in the bathroom.”

“Under the bed,” Matt said. He balanced the beer on his knee with his free arm.

“My bed smells of cat?”

“Your whole apartment smells of cat,” Matt explained, but it didn’t sound like he was complaining, just making an observation. “I can hear her heartbeat.”

“That’s creepy.”

“It sped up when I came in the door. Like it always does.”

“You’re making it worse.”

Matt shrugged, as much as he could with his arms busy. The rest of him was considerably slumped. “I’m sorry for being late.”

“I guess I can’t put myself ahead of whatever crime you were stopping. That’s what you were doing, right?”

Matt nodded, which looked painful. “Mugger.”

“You think they would stop. At least in this neighborhood.”

“You would think so.”

They fell into silence, Matt finally drank some of his beer, but he was more focused on keeping the meat on his head. And maybe not passing out.

“Foggy said you would make a bad boyfriend,” Theo announced.

“He did?”

“In so many words. He wasn’t saying it to be mean to you. He was saying it to protect me. Like Foggy needs to protect me.”

“He’s not wrong,” Matt said. “I’ve only had one relationship that lasted ... until I found out she likes to murder people. _Liked_.” He added, “I’m not sure if she’s alive. She was in the building. At Midland Circle.”

That was a lot to unpack so Theo just said, “I’m sorry.”

“Foggy hated her.”

“Foggy doesn’t hate anybody.”

Matt looked up. Or, his eyes looked at the ceiling and it was coincidental. “He hated the person I became around her.”

“Which was?”

“The person who sank the Castle case by never showing up, not paying attention. The person who killed Nelson and Murdock.”

“I watched that case, and it was a train wreck from Foggy’s opening remarks. I didn’t even know what he was doing, defending that guy. I mean, I understand what a defense attorney does, but why would he even take that case?”

“Karen and I talked him into it. For different reasons.”

“I still wanted him to win. I just didn’t want the Punisher to get off.”

“We didn’t want him to get off. The original plea was to take the death penalty off the table. Only G-d can take a life,” Matt said. “Only G-d _should_ take a life.”

“That’s adorably Catholic,” Theo said. “And it sounds like something Foggy couldn’t help but say yes to.”

“And you see what happened.”

Damn. Matt looked like someone had kicked him. Theo pulled out his kitchen chair and set it across from Matt. “If it helps, I don’t want to be your boyfriend.”

“Okay.”

“But I don’t want to stop seeing you, either.”

Matt smiled one of his rare real smiles. “Okay.”

“Don’t get too full of yourself. Maybe I really just don’t like meeting new people.”

“Where do you go?” Matt asked. “To do that.”

“Clubs. I kind of hate them, but bars feel too much like I’m at work.”

“Clubs are loud,” Matt said. “Everyone smells like Axe body spray. I don’t even like bars that much – too many people. Too hard to follow everything. I don’t like anything that makes me feel blind.”

“You go drinking with Foggy.”

“I like drinking with Foggy and it happens to be at a specific bar,” Matt clarified. “So I tolerate it. Foggy knows – even before when he didn’t know about my senses, he knew I didn’t like to be around too many people.”

“I’ve seen you fight multiple people. Online.”

“It’s never more than five on one,” Matt clarified, as if that made it all better. He closed his eyes. Maybe he thought Theo wouldn’t notice, or he didn’t care. He looked really tired.

Shit.

“You should take better care of yourself,” Theo said. “But I suppose you get that a lot, don’t you?”

“Maybe.” He paused, doing his hang-dog expression. “Do you want me to leave?”

“You’re wearing my cat’s dinner. Two night’s worth. And you’re somehow still cute. So you can stay. But you should probably lie down.”

“I’m awake.” But so barely. “I don’t want to bother you.”

“Having a hot guy in my bed is not bothersome,” Theo said. He took Matt’s drink away and cleaned up his face. Matt didn’t put up any fight, which showed just how exhausted he was. “You don’t want to go to the doctor?”

“I had a nurse.”

“She around?”

Matt shook his head. “She left me for Luke Cage.”

“Luke Cage?”

“It’s complicated.”

Everything sounded complicated. Matt was a complicated guy, that much was obvious. “Her loss,” Theo said. “You’re not bleeding, are you? My sheets are white.”

“Not right now.”

“Good enough.” Theo kissed Matt on the uninjured side of his head and helped him to bed. Never was undressing a guy in his bed less sexy, but he didn’t mind. There hadn’t been a lot of guys he just wanted to sleep next to. “I think I’m gonna tell my parents when they get back from Florida.”

“Yeah?”

“I think it will be okay. And hiding – it’s just so exhausting. Worrying about getting caught, seen by somebody I know at a bar – in case you didn’t notice, my family knows _everybody_.”

“It’s been helpful at work,” Matt said. “It’ll be fine. Do you want me to be there?”

“Are you gonna tell your mom?”

“Objection.”

“Denied,” Theo said. “See? I know your lawyer words.”

Matt chuckled as Sadie made her appearance, leaping up onto the bed and onto Matt’s stomach like he was a pillow for her to stomp on. “She’s hungry.”

“You smell of meat.”

“Mmm.” Matt didn’t push her off. He was too polite for that anyway, but nothing required him to rub her between her ears while she tried to get her tongue to his forehead before settling on licking his fingers. “Her tongue is like a brush.”

“You don’t spend a lot of time around animals, do you?”

“Foggy says I should get a dog.” And Matt was putting up with all of the licking, at least as long as it was kept to his fingers. “I thought you said she hated strangers.”

“She’s just shy. But right now she might be more hungry than shy. Which means I should feed her.” He picked Sadie up and carried her to the kitchen, where he tore off a piece of steak and gave it to her to bat around his floor while he chopped up the rest of it. Matt had no comment to this, and when Theo finished feeding Sadie and turned around, he wasn’t surprised to find Matt sound asleep on his bed.

“G-d damnit,” he said, looking right at Sadie. “I thought having a super hot vigilante not-boyfriend boyfriend would be way better than this.”

Sadie mewed at him.

“Yeah, I know.” It was certainly better than nothing. He couldn’t remember the last person who wanted to be in his bed just to _sleep_ , even if he still had to go in the morning. Oh wait, no, there was that Malcolm guy, but it was because he was way too high to do anything else.

“You’d better be worth it,” he said to Matt as he slipped into what was left of “his side” of the bed with a stupid, sprawled-out crime fighter and put an arm around him.

And Sadie waited a whole twenty minutes before jumping on his head, which was nice.

 

“Your cat is still licking my head.”

Theo had barely registered Matt was still there after he heard the alarm and turned over to hit it. When he turned back, Sadie was indeed squarely on Matt’s pillow, licking his forehead with such intensity that she had probably taken a layer of skin off by now. Not that Matt had stopped her.

“Go! Shoo!” Theo did the honors, swiping at Sadie until she got the picture and scrambled down the bed and into the bathroom. “Sorry. You can, uh, make her go away when she’s doing that.”

“I’m just honored that she likes me,” Matt said, and it was too early in the morning for Theo to tell if he was kidding yet. “I was thinking - if you want me to tell my mom, I’ll tell my mom. Though I think she’ll just wonder why I told her.”

“You don’t have to,” Theo said, rubbing his eyes. Wasn’t Matt the master of conversational transitions. “Is it awkward with her? Just finding out she’s your mom?”

What. A. Stupid. Question. Matt, thankfully, ignored that aspect of it. “Yes. I was mad at her for a long time. But I had to let that go. Mostly. But I don’t know how to have a mom.”

“Does she complain about you not calling enough even though you see her all the time?”

“No.”

“Do have you have to close out some tabs on your laptop really quickly when she comes by?”

“Never had to do that.”

“Does she bother you about dating - wait, you already said she did. So you’ve got that part of your relationship down pat.”

Matt giggled. Theo didn’t even know he could giggle. Was this what he was like in the morning?

“... Time is it?” Matt mumbled.

“Seven-thirty ... ” He checked his watch. “... Five. Do you need to be somewhere?”

“Yes, but I think I’m going to be late. But unless you want to come out to the whole store, I think we should stagger it.”

“ _We?_ ”

“Yeah.” Matt climbed on top of him. “Definitely _we_.”

The End


End file.
